Chief of Staff

Avaaz is at an exciting moment in its evolution. Over the past 18 months, the organisation has restructured to adapt to the rapidly changing global context and deliver more impact. With this foundation in place, the CEO now seeks to shift towards a more externally focused posture, amplifying the organisation’s voice and impact on the global stage.

To enable this transition, Avaaz seeks to recruit a Chief of Staff (CoS), who can assume critical internal management responsibilities, freeing the CEO and Deputy CEO to concentrate on strategic and external priorities.

The CoS will serve as a key driver of strategic and operational excellence, ensuring organisational goals and strategies are delivered efficiently, shaping priorities, turning vision into execution, and ensuring strategic decisions reliably produce outcomes. This role brings order to complexity, delivering decisions made by the executive team to drive execution across Avaaz.

The successful candidate will thrive in a dynamic environment, embracing change and introducing innovative ways of working that resonate with Avaaz’s mission-driven ethos and remote-first culture. The ability to lead with empathy, navigate complexity, and inspire a diverse, passionate team with competing priorities is essential.

Beyond technical competence, exceptional communication, interpersonal skills, and the right personality fit are critical – the successful candidate can handle a fast pace, high stress, complexity, and ambiguity with grace and determination.

This is a rare opportunity to both deliver impact today and help shape the future of one of the world’s most powerful civic movements.

Reporting Line

• Reports to the CEO and works in close collaboration with the Deputy CEO.

• Member of the Office of the CEO.

• The Office of the CEO provides delivery capacity for cross-organisational initiatives outside Avaaz’s three departments (Campaigns, Operations, Tech and Product), ensuring work is well-organised and delivered.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Executive Partnership
• Act as a trusted advisor and thought partner to the CEO and Deputy CEO, ensuring they are set up for success.

• Provide insight, judgment, and counsel on organisational priorities, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.

• Proactively identify challenges and opportunities for the organisation, ensuring timely information flow and decision-making support to executives.

• Serve as a proxy for the CEO in meetings or communications when appropriate, maintaining alignment with organisational values and priorities.

Strategy to Execution

• Convert cross-functional priorities into clear, actionable plans with defined owners, timelines, and success metrics.

• Ensure decisions lead to measurable impact.

• Establish systems for tracking and reporting progress on strategic initiatives, identifying risks and course-correcting as needed.

Operational Planning

• Own execution of organisation-wide planning cycles, OKRs, and accountability frameworks.

• Ensure clarity and discipline in organisational rhythm.

• Identify and implement improvements in organisational processes, decision-making, and communication to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

Executive Team Management

• Facilitate cohesion and collaboration across the Executive Team, driving clarity on priorities and responsibilities.

• Design and run executive team meetings with clear objectives, actionable outcomes, and follow-through.

Board & Governance

• Coordinate board meetings, oversee development of materials, ensure compliance with governance standards, and support Board-Executive interaction.

• Foster strong relationships with board members, ensuring they are informed, engaged, and aligned with organisational priorities.

Risk Management

• Own development and maintenance of an organisational risk register, ensuring risks are identified and appropriately managed.

• Project manage stakeholder communications and cross-team crisis/project management.

Culture & Communication

• Model and actively champion organisational values, equity, and inclusion.

• Foster a culture where every individual feels respected, empowered, and heard.

• Ensure priorities and decisions are communicated consistently and transparently across all regions, creating clarity and trust among global teams.

Experience

• Exceptional track record translating vision into execution, ensuring organisational priorities are delivered with precision and impact.

• At least 8 years of experience leading high-performing, diverse teams and working at top management level to align operations with strategic goals, preferably in a global or remote setting.

• Experience designing lightweight, flexible processes to improve efficiency across operations.

• Experience implementing strategies across complex organisations, with strong problem-solving in concurrent operational challenges.

• Excellent change leadership credentials, including appreciation of people, technology, processes, and systems, with a record of successfully implementing transformation programs.

• Worked across international settings, fostering collaborative, results-oriented environments with remote work experience.

• Familiarity with international political and civic movement contexts.

Competencies

• Strategic, critical, and systems thinker; creative problem solver; curious and determined while able to dive into details, operations, and execution.

• Excellent project management and organisational skills, with a bias for clarity, rigor, and delivery.

• Resilient in high-pressure environments; comfortable with ambiguity and complexity.

• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; fosters an environment of openness and collaboration.

• Politically sensitive; able to work in a multicultural environment and influence collaboratively.

Personal Attributes

• Sound judgment, agility in problem-solving, effective decision-making, and growth mindset.

• Highly collaborative, low-ego, with high emotional intelligence and self-management.

• Skilled in giving and receiving feedback on an ongoing basis.

• Adaptable in fast-paced, high-stakes environments.

• Purpose-driven, with a deep commitment to Avaaz’s mission.

• Fluent in English.

Location

• Avaaz is a fully virtual organisation, with staff based across six continents.

• Preferred candidates are based in EMEA or Americas (EST) time zones, though other locations may be considered.

Compensation

• Salary is based on location and experience. Candidates will be provided with an accurate range in local currency:

• Europe: 135,777 – 177,839 EUR

• UK: 117,247 – 153,569 GBP

• US: 170,317 – 223,079 USD

Benefits

• 5 weeks paid vacation per year

• 10 paid holidays per year

• Up to 2,500 USD for training and development per year

• Up to 1,250 USD for language development per year

• Workspace support, including reimbursement for home office or co-working expenses

Application Timeline

• Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Submit as soon as possible.

• Only candidates whose experience closely matches the position will be contacted.

• Avaaz has retained the leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder to support recruitment. Representatives will contact selected candidates.

About Avaaz

• International campaigning and advocacy organisation with almost 70 million members globally.

• One of the world’s largest online global campaigning movements addressing human rights, indigenous struggles, climate change, and disinformation.

• Funded through small donations from individual members, maintaining independence from governments or corporations.

Commitment to Equity and Inclusion

• Avaaz strives to reflect the global diversity of its membership.

• Supports an equitable working environment for all employees.

• Does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, language, gender, age, disability, or other legally protected characteristics.

• Provides reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disabilities or special needs.

• Applications must be submitted online; email applications will not be considered.

Tagged as: business operations, business strategy, change management, chief of staff, corporate strategy, cross functional coordination, decision making, executive leadership, executive support, internal communications, leadership support, operations management, organizational development, performance management, process improvement, project management, stakeholder management, strategic planning, team leader